The production of flour based products has served as a staple food source from times too early to determine. Somewhat similarly, the automated production of pasta products has also received a great deal of attention over an extended number of years. These devices have covered a variety of applications from the production of simple uncooked pasta to the production of precooked stuffed pasta products such as manicotti and ravioli.
While the production of products such as these has received a significant amount of attention during the years, the production of the product known as lasagna appears to have received much less consideration. Thus, while broad lasagna type noodles are produced in large quantities, the responsibility falls upon the purchaser to cook the noodles and layer them with other substances such as meat, cheese and sauce in order to produce the finished product which is then baked. With the demands of today's society, and the general appeal that lasagna has to the public, there is little doubt that an easy to prepare yet quality lasagna product is desirable.
When considering the state of the art, several reasons for the failure to economically produce such a product are suggested. Since the lasagna product is not enclosed as other pasta type products, it is necessary to work with separate continuous strips of pasta noodles. In order to provide a filling between these separate noodle strips, various alignment steps must be performed. To do this economically, it is preferable to deal with the separate strips as a single unit and avoid the use of separate hoppers and extruders as has been done in the past. The difficulty becomes more evident when as in the present invention, one wishes to provide a precooked product. Since it is not desirable to cook the product after the filling has been introduced and since most prior art devices that deal with more than one strip use separate hoppers for each strip, it would be necessary to join the strips for cooking, or use separate cooking means, then separate the strips for filling and rejoin them. In addition to the difficulties encountered in aligning separate noodle strips, as the process is extended to include steps such as extruding, cooking, filling and cutting, breakage of the strips becomes a difficulty. Should one seek to overcome this difficulty by providing slack in the noodle strips for an asynchronous process, greater difficulties in alignment are encountered.
I also found that when providing a precooked, ready to bake lasagna product, other difficulties are encountered in the production of a product satisfactory to the ultimate consumer. The individual who makes his own lasagna product has little or no difficulty distributing the filling substances such as meat, cheese, and sauce evenly upon the layers of noodles. However, when the product is precooked and purchased frozen, there is little or no opportunity to evenly distribute the ingredients without trying to separate the product into its components. Thus, whereas other manufacturers of noodle strips seek to inhibit the flow of sauce, since the preparer is applying the sauce where he desires it to be, the producer of a precooked lasagna product must have a noodle strip configuration that assists and enhances the flow of sauce without the ultimate consumer having to separate the product. In addition, the filling between the noodle strips must be consistent and even throughout the product.
With these ideas in mind, I began working on my invention. The approach which led me to the development of my present invention was the realization that the use of slack in the noodle strips for the asynchronous production of the product would aid in the simultaneous production of the strips and help avoid breakage if the strips could be properly aligned prior to filling.
It was, therefore, an object of this invention to provide a machine for the continuous asynchronous production of a precooked lasagna product.
Another object of this invention was to provide such a machine which would limit breakage of the noodles and thus avoid the need to interrupt the process.
Another object of this invention was to provide a machine which would produce a precooked lasagna product wherein the inner filling was continuous and evenly distributed.
Another object of this invention was to provide a precooked lasagna product which enhanced sauce migration and flow.
Other objects of this invention will become apparent to those familiar with this field as the detailed description is considered.